Monday, September 28, 2009

PARIS, Sept 27 - A Singapore Airlines A380 was forced to turn round mid-flight and head back to Paris on Sunday after one of its four engines failed, the head of the airline's French operations said.

The doubledecker A380 took off from Paris at 12.30 p.m. with 444 passengers aboard and headed for Singapore, but had to turn round after 2 hours 45 minutes because of the engine problem, airline director Jerry Seah said.

The plane landed safely back in France at 5.45 p.m. (1545 GMT) and the passengers were sent to hotels as the airline tried to lay on an alternative flight for them.

Seah told Reuters he believed it was the first time the plane had suffered such a problem since it had started operating the Singapore-Paris route earlier this year.

The giant jet, built by Airbus , is designed to continue flying with only three engines, but came back to Paris as a safety precaution.

The engines on the Singapore A380s are built by Britain's Rolls Royce Group . (Reporting by Jean Baptiste Vey, writing by Crispian Balmer; editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)